The Effect Of Knowledge Heterogeneity And Motivation On Group Creativity

As an important part of team diversity,knowledge heterogeneity plays a crucial role in group creativity.However,previous studies on the relationship between knowledge heterogeneity and team creativity are inconsistent,and the favorable effect of knowledge heterogeneity on team creativity may depend on certain moderating variable.Even though the past research mostly looked for factors from the cognitive and social perspectives,such as knowledge conflict and social support some researchers think that the motivation is the keystone.Furthermore,In the past,most attention was paid to internal motivation and external motivation,but as far as the research on team creativity is concerned,internal and external motivation can not well explain the process of team information processing.The motivated information processing theory solved this problem well.Based on team judgment and decision-making,the theory proposed epistemic motivation and social motivation.Therefore,based on the idea that motivation plays a fundamental role in the relationship between knowledge heterogeneity and team creativity,and the epistemic motivation and social motivation proposed based on motivated information processing theory,this study will focus on the following issues:whether and what kind of differences exist in the influence of knowledge heterogeneity on team creativity;How epistemic motivation and social motivation play a role in team creation;How knowledge heterogeneity support group creativity under the action of epistemic motivation and social motivation.Study 1 selected several college students' groups in Wuhan which devote themselves to innovation practice and relevant programs,the common features of the above team is that most team members are college students,and they usually take part in the innovative undertaking and innovation in the form of programs and contests.A total of 14 teams participate in study 1 through questionnaire survey.The results show that there is a significant positive correlation between knowledge heterogeneity and team creativity.The higher the knowledge heterogeneity is,the higher the team creativity will be.Social motivation is positively correlated with knowledge heterogeneity and team creativity.Social motivation plays a moderator in the relationship between knowledge heterogeneity and team creativity.When the social motivation is high,no matter what the level of knowledge heterogeneity of the team is,it is higher than the team creativity under low social motivation.When the social motivation is low,the knowledge heterogeneity can significantly predict the team creativity,and the higher the level of knowledge heterogeneity,the more conducive to the team creativity.Study 1 just find the moderating effect of social motivation on the relationship between knowledge heterogeneity and team creativity,the moderating effect of epistemic motivation was not found.However,according to the motivated information processing theory,cognitive motivation and social motivation are interactive,so it is necessary to further explore the influence of knowledge heterogeneity,social motivation and cognitive motivation on team creativity.Thus study 2 decided to make it better.Researcher makes the team members perceive the epistemic motivation and social motivation in the same problem and situation through the experiment design,and the experiment will divide group creativity into idea generation based on divergent thinking and product design based on convergent thinking,thus the measure of team creativity becomes more diverse,including novelty and feasibility,etc.Based on the current network background,study 2 adopts the electronic brainstorming paradigm,219 first-year and fourth-year college students,a total of 73 teams,are selected,they will make group discussion through the QQ group.The first-stage is idea generation and the second-stage is product design,and the task is carried out against the background of 2022 Beijing winter Olympics.The research results are as follows:When the dependent variable was the total idea generation score(the novelty score multiply by feasibility score),the team creativity under medium and high heterogeneity was significantly higher than that under low heterogeneity.The team creativity under high social motivation condition was marginally significant higher than that under low social motivation condition.when social motivation and epistemic motivation are both high,group creativity is the highest,which supports the motivated information processing theory.Epistemic motivation moderates the relationship between knowledge heterogeneity and total viewpoint score.Under the condition of low epistemic motivation,medium heterogeneous teams can make the best performance,while under the condition of high epistemic motivation,high heterogeneous teams can promote team creativity.When the idea novelty was taken as the dependent variable,the idea novelty of medium heterogeneous teams was the highest.When the feasibility was taken as the dependent variable,the idea generated by the highly heterogeneous team had the highest feasibility.Social motivation plays a moderating role in the relationship between knowledge heterogeneity and feasibility score.When the social motivation is high,the high heterogeneity team can generate more feasible views than the medium and low heterogeneity team.When the social motivation is low,the views generated by medium and high heterogeneous teams are more feasible.When the product design score is taken as the dependent variable,all the main effects and interaction effects are not significant.Therefore,by means of electronic brainstorming,the beneficial effect of knowledge heterogeneity,epistemic motivation and social motivation on team creativity is mainly reflected in the process of team idea generation rather than the final product design process.